Three more weeks to reflect and prepare for the future

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Cambium Insights

The UK Government has extended the Covid-19 restrictions for at least three more weeks.

The lockdown is a strange experience for all of us. In an incredibly short space of time the coronavirus has laid bare the interconnected nature of our world, resulting in a massive global economic shock. We all hope that this will be a short V-shaped downturn, but some economic commentators are expecting the sharp downturn to be followed by a slower rise in economic growth. Whatever the shape of the rebound in the post Covid-19 economy, we do know that the business environment is going to be tough. Indeed, businesses will need to improve competitiveness and productivity to ensure their survival and regain their pre-crisis prosperity.

Some organisations see this opportunity to explore new ideas and to provide businesses with insight that may enable an innovative response to the pandemic. One example of this is provided by our partners at the Hartree Centre. The Hartree Centre, a nationally recognised centre for AI and data technology, is running a series of free webinars show casing how digital technologies can enhance productivity and innovation.

How can adoption of digitalisation enable an effective post-Covid-19 response?

One of our collective experiences in the last few weeks has been that many of us are now expert users of videoconferencing technology. Applications, like Zoom, are universally understood and used with aplomb by grandparents and children. These tools are now no longer the sole preserve of global businesses. A good example of a major external event that has catalysed the rapid adoption of an existing IT innovation. Once again necessity, the need to communicate with family and friends, has been the mother of invention.

In the looming weak post-crisis economy, the necessity will be the need to improve productivity. A key answer to this pressing challenge will be the wider adoption of existing digitalisation tools and the strategic leverage of data by business. Many of the tools now in use by early adopters before the Covid-19 crisis, are likely to be used more widely. Digitalisation has already enabled businesses to reduce the time needed to develop new differentiated products to meet new customer needs, whilst optimising costs. This ability for digitatlisation strategies to connect your business to your customers in ways that create more value will become key weapons in the battle for survival. Equally the recognition of our connected world will increase pressure for us all to think about how we rebuild our economy in more sustainable ways. For example, digitalisation is already helping manufacturing businesses to improve the predictability of their processes, to reduce waste and with it their environmental impact. As we move to a net zero world, these pressures will increase in importance for many businesses across many sectors. The use of digitalisation technologies will be vital to meeting many of these challenges.

Einstein’s quotation is very relevant to us all today. Given the pressing challenges likely to face us after the lockdown unwinds, the additional time for reflection and learning is very precious. If you believe that digitalisation needs to be part of your strategy for success in a post Covid 19 world, you may choose to use the extended lockdown is to participate in the series of free, open webinars delivered by the Hartree Centre. They will cover the industrial application of high performance computing, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. You will also learn about the UK government backed support that is available to help you use digitalisation to help your business to improve its productivity and competitiveness,

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